Us Elections Live!!!-Asaph Mic Coverage

-North Carolina
-Texas
-Washington DC
I’ve just spoken to Myrna Perez of the Brennan Center for Justice that is part of a coalition of groups working to protect the vote today. They run a hotline - 866-OUR-VOTE – which has received thousands of complaints from voters running into difficulties.

North Carolina, one of the most sensitive swing states that both Clinton and Trump have poured resources into winning, has been particularly troubled today by voting machines breaking down and electronic polling books seizing up. There’s no suggestion of foul play here, but it has complicated an already tense election day.

Texas is a story of more willful trouble. The Republican-controlled legislatures efforts to introduce one of the strictest forms of photo-ID requirements in the country has led to widespread confusion, Perez said.

The coalition has found numerous cases of signs being posted on the walls of polling stations that incorrectly inform voters about Texas’ photo-ID criteria.

Many complaints have come in about alleged intimidation of voters outside polling stations from a number of states. “We’ve certainly heard from voters complaining about this, though it’s going to be very hard to tell how organized it was. It’s too early to tell whether it was an individual action or something more planned.”

One development that Perez said would have to be reviewed after the dust has settled from this election was the proliferation of poll watchers. The 2016 election cycle, given the degree of suspicion around, had spawned the surreal phenomenon of poll watchers observing voters and then poll monitors watching them.

“We are creating a culture of multiple layers of people observing each other, which produces it’s own challenges. We’ve got to a place where poll watchers watch watchers watching watchers.”